20 month old with reccurring vomiting over period of weeks

Well, we are at a total loss here. This really might go back further than the past three weeks so I'll post a some history of our child. From the day he was born until about 9 months old, he would spit up virtually after every feeding. We finally moved him to whole milk and this seemed to go away nearly altogether. Everything seemed normal until several weeks ago.

He had what seemed to be a typical stomach virus with some vomiting but not diarrhea. After a day or so he was fine and we went on with out lives. A few weeks later, the same thing, this time with severe diarrhea and vomiting. We thought that he'd probably gotten another virus. After about 3 days he was much better. This was about two months ago, by the way.

Now, three weeks ago it's a Sunday evening, he's running a tad feverish and not eating. Half an hour later he throws up. We get him to sleep with little problem, he sleeps the whole night. No diarrhea. He awakens, still feverish a bit. We feed him and he throws up again. After which he is almost literally bouncing off the walls. He wasn't acting sick one bit. We went ahead and took him into daycare. The week passes with no incident. Until Friday...

We get a call around 11am he is throwing up and at this point it's so frequent that it's nothing more than bile. I went and got him and had to hover over him for several hours while he vomited 2-3 times an hour. Finally took him to the pediatrician that late afternoon and he was mostly over the vomiting. They poked, prodded and took temperature. While he felt cool to the touch they said he had a 'slight' fever, whatever that means. They said maybe it was just some virus left over that came back. He vomited one more time on the way home and then he started acting perfectly fine around 6pm. We had burgers and fries from our stressful day and here he was wanting to eat them. He got so mad that we wouldn't feed him that we were afraid he'd go into another vomiting fit. So we gave him fries and bits of bread. We expected it to come back up but it didn't. The rest of the weekend pass without incident... until the next Friday. (this past weekend)

He doesn't eat much at dinner this past Friday but we dont think much about it. His appetite seems to have been off for several weeks and we can't blame him. So 2am Saturday morning rolls around and he vomits, again. Then he started throwing up bile, again. Very similar to the previous friday. He seems a little out of it and lethargic but doesn't appear to be running fever this time either. He finally falls asleep and wakes up, has some blueberry muffin and semi-vomits a little bit of it up, though not all of it. We make him another appt. and take him in. They're saying now they don't think it's viral at this point. I'd have to agree but who knows.

Well Sunday (Mothers day) He vomits again early in the afternoon after drinking tea and running around and getting hot. We chalk it up to him getting worked up. He goes to sleep fine and Monday passes with no incident, until we get home. He eats very little at dinner and we get him a bottle to go to sleep. At this point we're trying lactose free whole milk. Not half an hour later he vomits it all up. He had two loose diapers earlier that evening but that was all. He got to sleep and slept without incident the whole night.

This morning we get him up and he's fussy and a little out of it. We're expecting the call from daycare and sure enough, we get it. He's throwing up again this morning and they say he has a fever of 100F.

So, now, the question: What the heck is wrong with our kid? Can a virus last this long, as in several weeks? Is he just very unlucky and getting them over and over. By the way, myself, my wife and our six year old have not had any of the symptoms he's had (ie no nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, etc). It's just the 20 month old. We're tracking what he eats and when he gets sick now so if it's a food allergy then we can narrow it down that way.

We're emotionally and physically drained from dealing with this. We know our baby isn't exactly thrilled either. We're looking around today to get him into somewhere to have him tested for something or anything. We're sick of having people poke at him and give us an opinion. I know the doctors are doing the best they can but we really need to step it up and narrow this down. We fear that if this goes on much longer he'll run into more problems with ulcers or esophogal damage, etc.

I'm hoping someone here has had similar experience and had it resolved. I don't wish the pain of a sick child on anyone but I don't know what else to do. Even if we had a list of things we could ask the doctors to do. We're likely going to get a referral to a specialist but in the meantime we're looking for even the slightest peace of mind.

Ok,
Wife just got done with the doctor. They ran tests on him for strep which came back negative. They ran a urine test which showed nothing. Lastly, they did an X-ray and of all things, he appears to be heavily constipated.

I never would have thought... Though it makes sense now that I think back. She told the doc everything that had been going on and they said everything we describe can be attributed to constipation. So glad we got the second opinion. Lets hope this is the answer!

We've been given prescriptions to "clean him out" so to speak. I'm going to post back in a couple of days just to give an update.

Just an update to this post from nearly a year ago. Our son had a few more bouts of this but it seemed to quickly clear up when we gave him things like fiber gummies and more fruit. Sadly, the kid LOVES french fries but we limit those as much as we can. We try to treat junk food as a treat and not as the average meal. I also think he has some issues with GERD as I had a lot of that growing up too. Otherwise, he's healthy and we're thankful for that.

I find this post so interesting because my son has had episodes of vomiting over the last year and a half (as well as bloody stool) but the three Ped. GI's we've seen swear up and down that constipation doesn't cause vomiting.

Tried avoiding milk products? my son has a similar issue and my brother does not eat/drink anything with whey in it as it makes his stomach hurt and really constipated. My son has been off whey for most of his life (he's 22 months) and when we recently introduced it back in, even just a little a day, his stools became extremely hard and his reflux back again.

Tried avoiding milk products? my son has a similar issue and my brother does not eat/drink anything with whey in it as it makes his stomach hurt and really constipated. My son has been off whey for most of his life (he's 22 months) and when we recently introduced it back in, even just a little a day, his stools became extremely hard and his reflux back again.

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